How did you get to be an "Artistic Failure"?

My Failure Story/intro:

Went into the artist life kicking and screaming, I didn't want to be an artist, didn't want to be poor. Wanted a nice secure middle class job, my dad was a commission salesman and then latter a commission headhunter which meant that on good years I grew up with constant financial instability from year to year. Good years were mostly used to pay off debts from bad years. I thought an artist's life was even more unstable that a commission salesman's life. I figured if I was ever to have kids, I owed them a life of fear from home foreclosure and months of eating mac and cheese.

I went to college, second rate state institution. Tried for a teaching major but couldn't conform enough to be acceptable as a student teacher, cooperationg teachers seem to be threatened by other teachers with imaginations and will try to root out any like that while they are still student teaching when possible. Had to take a second academic major, picked fine art because it came naturally easy for me to do something spontaineous and get an A. Freed up my time. Teaching major fell through but I don't think any of the other academic majors would have gotten me a job easily either, it's not like you can go as a History major and get a good paying job in a fortune 500 company.

Worked in hospitals, a group home for cerebral palsey, and eventually retail. Was terrible with politics, cheeky and manipulative with authority. I paid the price with manangement accordingly. Did such a number on having no or bad references that only places that didn't bother with background checks would hire me. After all, once you try blackmailing a hospital administrator that is pressuring you to resign so they don't have to contribute to your unemployment, to force them to write a letter of dismissal, and milk the full six months of unemployment. Well, it's kind of hard to get a job after that.

Eventually I concluded, foaming lattes for burgois bastards on cellphones screaming they have to catch trains, that I couldn't make any less than I was doing minimum wage work if I illustrated.

I did. I was illustrating for a few realtors, used a victorian black and white pen and ink style to make portraits for gift giving. It was better money than retail. Customers were more annoying. Eventually used the same style for children's portraits, cars (yes, some rich people want to commission you to do cars) and even two issues of a local paper with Norman Rockewell style Newspaper front pages.

I was getting prestige, known around town, it still wasn't enough income to move out from my parents house. I found the endless photos I needed to reproduce freehand to be a bore, but was so perfectionistic that I obsessed over detail that pleased the clients but wouldn't have been necessary to get my checks or repeat buisiness.

Eventually I decided I wanted to do some really meaninful peices, same medium, New york city street scenes. These were things I liked. I took my meager savings and invested in making offset prints of the scenes I obsessed on for about two months each (Imagine tight crosshatching with the .005 micron pigma pen on picture fields 18"x24"). Made 500 copies of each of my first four (out of six). Signed and numbered all, plaquemounted a mix of 100 prints, packaged, shrink wrapped, durable styrofoam corners for shipping.

I presented it as a product for corperate gift giving. About $80 each for about (with mounting and shipping) about a $25 per unit production cost.

I met with three investment banks that year, from 2000-2001. All of these places I spoke to people my father placed into high positions as a headhunter, or found really good candidates for. One investment bank was ready to commission me to do original work for a new trading floor for mortgage backed securities, and then buy the mounted prints of those originals, about 2500 of them.

The meetings continued, friendly correspondence, but they were stalling. The economy was starting slow alot. Rumors abounded of a recession. Great pressure was put on all banks to reduce all unnecessary expendatures to make their books look better.

They told me to just hang in there. I did. I noticed the Bond Market was doing well, my best friends cousin was going to get me in Cantor Fitzgerald to show my work. We played phone tag, then on 9-11 the Towers went down with most of Cantor Fitzgerald. Luckily the cousin who was an unusally paranoid type (went through the first bombing) left his building after the first building was hit, even though everyone was telling him he was being silly. Good for him, back to the story...

I was flabbergasted and flustered. Was just turning 30, humiliated I was still living with parents. Just wanted to get any job to move out and look more responsible, was tired of explaining to peers with money and places of their own why I had none. I went out to get a construction job, I now operate an industrial Robot that precision cuts composite materials used to make custom panels used in siding for office buildings. A material called Alucobond.

I made a living wage, non-union, but never had a loss of work yet. Bought a fixer upper, moved to a town where everyone seems like they should be on springer as guests, but mostly harmless and amusing. Friends in low places, gotta love it.

Now, after about three years, I have permission to use leftover composite materials, and the Robot I cut with, and the autocad, to create sculptures. My boss has been kind enough to say that for my being a good employee, and cheap, he won't charge commission to have such large fabrications sold out to developers who we make office parks for in Jersey City. People like Mack-Cali.

There is always hope... I certainly do not want to spend the rest of my life crosshatching anymore, I am still good at it, but never... never again do I want to spend the end of every day with ice bags on my eyes for so intensely obsessing on detail. I need something large and abstract. At least I understand the medium, I work with it and the tools to cut it all day long.

Well, that's my artistic failure story.